Stop. Lobster Time.

The whole thing's a showpiece for how PlayStation Home's developed as a platform; not only does it look great, but it actually plays fairly well too.
The contraption's located in Home's Shopping Centre space. It's set to the West of the area in the sea-port. There's a carnival look to the setup that adds some charm to the space as a whole. When you initiate the game, you're treated to a short cut-scene of Oscar looking down on a hapless lobster. From there, you're into the action. Using a mechanical catapult you're able to position the direction of the lobster aswell as the pitch of its flight with the analogue sticks. The objective is to fling the lobsters seaward, and knock down a number of set targets surrounding Oscar. Once you're successful, you need to target the lobsters into Oscar's greedy mouth. It takes a few attempts to work out the trajectory, but once you nail it, it's quite easy to progress through the levels. There are 12 in total, but you only get access to one initially. Home's unique business model is put to the test once more, requiring the purchase of a lobster costume to unlock the additional levels.

The lobster costume is actually brilliant, and well worth the asking price. It adds a whole new set of animations to the Home avatar, and it's genuinely hilarious waddling through some of the more serious spaces dressed as a lobster. There's also plenty of other goodies to unlock by completing the various levels of Oscar's Lobster Mania.

Taken on its own, Oscar's Lobster Mania is little more than a short distraction from other more fulfilling experiences available on both the PlayStation 3 and within Home. But it's the production values that have excited me this time. Lobster Mania's a visually pleasing and entertaining little mini-game, and it once again proves the value of Home as an engine.

“There’s No Place Like Home” is PushSquare’s bi-weekly letter from PlayStation Home, penned by virtual world newbie Sammy Barker.